Paladin's Blood and the Truth Of This War
by Metalfull
Summary: Lance knew what was coming. He always had. From the moment the original Blue Paladin had hidden himself away on Earth everything had been set in motion. Now Lance was the last one who knew what this war really was. He knew what he'd have to do. He really wished he didn't.
1. Chapter 1

Hello, I know everyone pretty much hates notes that take away from the actual story but real quick:

This scene takes place shortly after the Paladins shuffle lions the first time but if (and hopefully I do) continue this story it will probably jump a bit in between chapters and not stay completely within the current show's path.

Also, open to feedback. I'll try to update another few chapters real soon if anyone's interested or I just find myself really wanting to to help explain a bit more of what's going on because "Lance" in this story obviously has a bit more history with the blue lion and such then the actual Lance does.

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 _Lance was tired of keeping secrets. Now he had so many that even if he'd wanted to come clean he wasn't sure where to start. The others would probably just think he was joking anyway, he didn't mean to go so far with the whole 'don't mind me, I'm just a harmless fool' act but it had saved his ass so many times that he really couldn't help it anymore. But he wasn't sure how much longer he could take it._

He double-checked Blue's hanger for any sign of Allura before he dared to sneak in.

 _Really it shouldn't be a surprise by now. Voltron has always been made up of creatures from different species, not that the others would know that, but still, one of them really should have questioned it long before they found out Keith was only partially human._

 _He could do this._

 _He needed to do this._ Lance tried to convince himself.

 _How hard could it be? Just walk up to the others during breakfast and casually mention that you may or may not be the descendent of a previous paladin, watch the team erupt into chaos, accuse you of not trusting them, walk away and go cry on some space-rock until they all calm down enough to stop pointing fingers at you and making accusations. Easy._

 _Also not going to happen._ He assured himself again.

That ship had long sailed.

Lance sighed and dragged his feet over to where Blue sat waiting for him.

"Hey girl." He greeted his old friend.

Blue chuffed a greeting back from where she lay but turned her head away from him stubbornly.

"Come on girl, can't we just talk for a bit?" He asked.

"I know…I know that you're Allura's lioness now and all but you've been in my life forever, this doesn't really change that does it?" He asked her and did his best to catch the attention of her glow-y eyes.

"Please _Tzannuka_?" He begged in a quite voice, hopeful that the seldom used nickname was enough to sway her.

Of course it was.

Blue's eyes shifted to his and visibly softened at the care he used when speaking such an ancient title to the even more ancient creature.

He felt her quintessence, cool and fluid and _**familiar**_ in ways Red would never feel to him as it surrounded him.

 _"Blue."_ His mind reached out to her in relief.

 _ **"My little one, you never will leave me will you? No matter how I push you away?"**_ Blue asked him, already knowing his answer.

 _"So long as a Paladin's blood runs through my veins, Paladin or not, I will always remain here, for you and all others who may have need of me and my kin."_ Lance echoed the words of his ancestors as he placed a hand on the snout of the blue wonder before him.

 _ **"Very well."**_ The lioness relented finally.

 _ **"But-"**_

 _"But your Paladin comes first."_ Lance mentally cut her off.

 _"I know."_ He told her.

 _"I've always known that."_

The lioness responded by letting the sadness she felt for knowing one so young had only known such burdens in his short life and for those too who had come before him and died without having had the chance for something outside of these chains to her and her comrades seep into the flow of their connection.

"It's alright Blue." He spoke out loud to her.

"It's best this way. We both know how this will all really end."

Lance's whispers felt dwarfed by the massive hanger the two heavy hearts couldn't bring themselves to believe they really found themselves in suddenly.


	2. Chapter 2

_Something was off._

Lance looked over the information from the team's briefing again.

 _Something like this can't be that simple._

He turned off the screen and stood from his seat in the lounge area of the ship they'd all taken to using and stood to go find one of the others.

 _Surely one of the others has to have seen it too._ He told himself as he tried to puzzle out why a simple supply ship, a small and practically _unarmed_ supply ship, was transporting such vast quantities of the Galra's corrupted quintessence.

Keith was in the bridge.

Lance didn't even waste a tick before marching up to him. "I don't like the look of this next mission."

Keith blinked twice and turned away from one of the reports their allies had sent in on information they'd gathered on anything and everything they thought might help the cause. "What?"

"This isn't right Keith. The last time we came across a fraction of a shipment of Galran crystals like this the entire ship was swarming with soldiers and druids. It just doesn't add up." Lance ranted.

"We've got to be missing something right?" He asked.

Keith swiped the document off screen and turned toward him, more concerned with his sudden interest in missions at all rather than what he was talking about. "You actually went over the briefing again?" Keith asked.

Lance glared at him. "Not the time for jokes Keith." Lance warned him.

"Just look at this again for me, will you?" Lance asked and pulled up what they had on the ship on the bridge screen quicker then he probably should have been capable of.

"See this?" He said pointing toward where the majority of the shipment was being held. "On almost all of the supply ships we've seen the Galra opt to keep everything more toward here." He told him and pointed further in toward the center of the ship, closer to where the control centers usually were on the larger ships. "Why would they change the entire layout for a ship that was essentially the exact same design and make, only to it easier for anyone attempting to loot their stuff to just bust in and get out? And for that matter, why is it that there are no escape pods anywhere on this side of the ship? There's always escape pods on both sides for emergencies." Lance rambled and started sketching out a rough outline of a regular supply ship over the layout for comparison.

Keith watched Lance try to work through the quirks in the data on his own to no avail for a while before he shook off the surprise and saw that Lance really _did_ have a point there.

Keith leaned in a little closer to see for himself and-

"Lance. How do you even know where the kitchen and living quarters are located on these ships to begin with?"

Lance looked at him like he was the strange one for not knowing.

"We've been on dozens of Galran supply ships." He stated slowly. "And you've _never_ taken a short cut through the least occupied halls during an attack?"

 _Am I the only one who's been aware of that this whole time?_ Lance wondered to himself.

"That- isn't a bad idea." Keith admitted after a tick. "But what if you're just looking into poor ship design too much?" He added.

"And what if I'm not and we get led straight into an ambush?" Lance challanged.

Keith hesitated but had to admit that not even Lance wouldn't have brought this up like that unless he was being completely serious about it. "Then I guess we better be on the safe side then." Keith acknowledged and eyed the conflicting layouts in front of them.

Lance nodded wordlessly in agreement.

Keith turned to go call for the others and let them know there was a change in plans before stopping in place and awkwardly saying: "Um, good job Lance?" without looking back at the him.

Lance held back a grin at how hard Keith was trying to hide the fact that he wasn't use to saying stuff like that to him so openly.

"Thanks. And Keith?" Lance asked.

Keith turned around, mildly irritated he had to and half expecting an insult, and faced him again to see what he wanted.

"It might be a good idea to just come in through the front door on this one. Someone's trying to help whoever's on that ship get their hands on us, they're probably expecting us to try and sneak in undetected, might be best to throw them off as much as we can." Lance said to him seriously.

"Right. We should talk it over with the others and see what they think about this." Keith told him and walked off with a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Lance nodded again and made no move to follow him.

 _You aren't doing too bad of a job either Mullet, not that I'd just admit it out loud, someone's gotta keep you on your toes afterall_. Lance grinned to himself as their _'leader's'_ voice came on over the Castle's intercoms not much later and pulled him out of his thoughts.

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Wow. A lot of people have been checking out this story since I uploaded it and I just now got around to figuring out where I was going to go with it next (I promise I wasn't planning on abandoning it there, I would have changed it to 'complete' if I was going to just leave it as is by now. You have no idea how many ways I was thinking about going about this, a few botched drafts on my computer can prove it.). I hope this chapter was just as good as the first. The next chapter will carry on from this one by the way, this wasn't just a glimpse at the relationship between Keith and Lance in this story (I tried to mirror the same relationship they had after Keith became the Black Paladin in the show as best I could because that's about where I'm starting from here.) and Lance's keen eyes (He's the team's sniper so I'm probably going to play off of him picking up on things the others don't a little bit.). Thanks to everyone who favorited/followed this story, I hope I keep it interesting enough for you all to keep reading in the future!


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